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EXECUTIVE BOARD COVERAGE​

Leadership program now permanent

Posted July 17, 2013

The AVMA Future Leaders Program, a one-year opportunity open to 10 veterinarians emerging in their career who have an interest in organized veterinary medicine, looks to move from a pilot to an annual program.

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The 2012-2013 Future Leaders class (some members in foreground) being introduced at the 2012 AVMA Annual Convention (Photo by Matt Alexandre/Robb Cohen Photography​)

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AVMA Executive Board members approved $60,000 during their June 6-8 meeting to help fund the 2013-2014 program and agreed to include the program in the Association’s budget annually thereafter. At press time, the 2013-2014 class was set to be announced during a press conference at the AVMA Annual Convention in Chicago.

The program has its members work with AVMA staff and facilitator Dr. Ken Andrews of High Impact Facilitation to identify a project that’s not only novel and valuable to AVMA members but also usable in the near term and developed only using in-house and in-kind services, according to the recommendation background material.

The AVMA’s second class of future leaders, the 2012-2013 class, planned to complete its yearlong program this July by conducting a half-day track at the AVMA convention and releasing a toolkit on cultural competence to help veterinarians increase work team efficiency, client compliance, and their practice income through new cultural competence skills.

And, like the inaugural 2011-2012 class, the 2012-2013 future leaders have been developing relevant online materials.

Beyond the toolkit and other content, the program is intended to benefit the future leaders themselves by bolstering their leadership and problem-solving skills. Ultimately, the program’s mission is to develop and sustain veterinarians as leaders across all levels of organized veterinary medicine. Already, many of the first class of future leaders are engaged in organized veterinary medicine within the AVMA, state VMAs, and allied groups.

Making the AVMA Future Leaders Program a standing program allows the Association to promote the program more heavily and to continue for a longer time frame, according to the background, attracting higher numbers of talented recent graduates and emerging leaders within 15 years of graduation.

Both the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 future leaders pilot programs have been sponsored in large part by Zoetis and by High Impact Facilitation.